The latest citadel-based scam sweeping highsec is the disabled dropbox scam! I’d like to provide everyone details on how to pull this off so that the enormous revenue it generates is available to all. Per the GM staff, this mechanic is not a bug and therefore abusing the crap out of it is not an exploit.
Set up a raitaru, don’t power up any modules, and don’t allow any public access. Alternatively you can allow public access until your first contract is accepted. Yeah, that’s the ticket! That’ll be great! Now create any number of public courier contracts with a generous reward and collateral. Make your structure the destination. Disregard the idea that being able to make an undeliverable contract in the first place is asinine - that’s not an impediment here.
Now watch the working-as-intended mechanic make you money. Haulers accept the generously rewarded contract, safe in the knowledge that the dropbox feature allows them to deliver regardless of structure status.
But no! In their wisdom, CCP have deemed the dropbox to be a service low power citadels in structure don’t offer, without actually ever documenting that fact. So, the poor hauler arrives at your raitaru, dithers around a bit, and then flies off to make a ticket, after which a GM will tell him he’s screwed, because the devs are on your side. This is emergent content and dynamic world building.
Seriously, CCP, what’s the point of a dropbox if it can be circumvented for profit?
Full disclosure: I lost a few billion to this ingenious scam. I’ve recovered those, no lasting harm done. I make the post only to raise awareness, to chide CCP for sloppy design, and to provide some mild entertainment. The one way this won’t ever get fixed is to bury it, so I figured I’d try the opposite tack.
To make cheap scammers happy again since the first iteration of structure scams was such a smashing success story. CCP’s cheap peddling, in other words.
I would say that you could hire some mercs to take down the structure for good with a quick war at the end of the structure timer. However, the scammers would not care because they would have made way more money than the structure is worth by then.
If you want to, you can also learn the lesson that collateral should be similar to the items in the shipment. Or not. You can learn that later if you want.
Your lack of understanding shows again. You can not check the destination whether a structure is reinforced or not unless you send an alt there to check it. And even then you cannot be sure because it is possible to reinforce a structure after you took a contract until you arrive there. And you cannot deliver to CD while a structure is in repair timer.
In other words: You cannot make sure of anything.
And the best thing is that CCP by extension of their support people said this is intentional, but the support staff nor CCP cannot provide any clear written down statement that it is. Developers are aware of it and working on it, which means we will see a fix to this in years.
So, while in the first iteration of the structure scam you could at least figure out scam structures by using tools to see repeated docking access removals, you cannot do the same with reinforced structures.
Yes, which also happens to be how you determine whether you can dock in a structure or not.
So youre basically saying that the mechanic of having to visit the citadel or station in question and determining whether you have access to docking rights or not, stayed the same.
Sure. And an owner of a station, pre-citadel era, can do the same.
Sounds like the same mechanic being ported over. The lesson here is the same. Make sure you can deliver to a citadel before you accept a contract.
The OP was talking about low-power structures, but if youre talking about reinforced structures, then yes, you can do the same.
Its called Vulnerability timers.
Guess what? You can find out when a structure is vulnerable just by looking at it. It even tells you when it will be available for hitting!
Again, Make sure you can deliver to a citadel before you accept a contract.
Which means you need an alt to send to the destination just to learn whether you can at all deliver and even though you did that and accepted a contract you still can be shut out. Sounds like something a person of your character would support, in other words utterly annoying gameplay experience.
That is also the reason why contracts into sov null sec have always been such a smashing success story that CCP at all cost had to introduce to high sec and low sec.
You really need to inject Reading Comprehension. Seriously. You repeat something that I just told you does not work.
No, you cannot do the same. Checking repeated docking access removal was possible with the API and keeping track of that. It is not possible to do the same with the reinforcement of structures. Structure vulnerability is completely irrelevant here. A structure is always vulnerable, it can always be attacked and it can always within 10-15 minutes put into hull reinforced state.
Again: Learn to read. You cannot make sure at all whether you can deliver to a structure. At all. It is not possible.
Sure, it is annoying to do your due diligence. I dont want to have to have my Car Mechanic check a used car before i buy it. Its annoying as hell. But I do, because thats what a responsible person who cares about what theyre buying, and doesnt want to waste Money, does.
Its called being a responsible adult.
I dont understand what you mean by this. Are you saying that contracts only existed in Nullsec, before they moved it to hi and low? Please, elaborate on this confusing mess of jargon.
It does work. And Ill explain, since you dont seem to understand it.
Part of Making sure you can deliver to a citadel before you accept a contract, involves getting to know who the owner of that citadel is, and forming a relationship. PushX delivers to Nullsec Imperium Space. They are in no danger of being gatecamped or locked out of docking into a citadel. How is this possible?
Because they did their due diligence. They made sure they can deliver to a citadel before accepting contracts from the Imperium.
…Are you seriously saying that something like the Tranquility trading tower, a Keepstar in hisec, can be put into hull reinforced state in 10-15 minutes? Are you seriously stating that this is even likely for a lot of citadels?
I can completely demolish this statement by asking you a simple question.
If I were to make a 1m3 contract to Tranquility Trading Tower from Dodixie, and courier it myself using an alt that I just made 10 minutes ago, what do you think the odds are that I can deliver it? Out of 100 times I do this, how many times do you think Ill succeed?
You clearly have not heard of the concept of public courier contracts. PushX did not deliver to random structures during the time of no CD either. Nor did Red Frog. They all only delivered to a select few structures.
Thank you for saying that all contracts that do not go to that particular structure owner are scams. Also thank you for revealing that you have no idea how these contract scams work. Also thank you for suggesting that the public courier business and structure use should go back to the times before CD when it was unfeasible to do business in those structures because a few scammers with lots of alts made every single structure appear like a scam destination.
What do you want to demolish with this question? Your own credibility? That has worked well with the previous post already. This is not about the TTT. It is about the myriad of structures other people use and own and who want to have contracts delivered to their structures. The CD was specifically introduced to make this possible. The fact that you use the TTT as example to support your narrative only goes to show that you do not understand how the contract business works.